I'm sure by now, you have all heard about the XBOX ONE. The new "video game console" by Microsoft. Not only does it have impressive features such as the innovative entertainment switching techniques used by the Xbox One Kinect. But, what if the Kinect had a lot more power on you and your living than you expected. Let's take a scenario:

You're in your living. You're watching a movie; let's say: Pulp Fiction. You have your little brother or sister who is definitely not of age to watch the movie you are watching. Let's also — for this example — say that you purchased the movie on the Xbox Marketplace. Now, you're watching it on your Xbox One and your little brother or sister walks into the room. He/she is there for about 5 minutes and starts to watch the movie with you. What would you do if the movie you were watching suddenly...shuts off. What if I told you the reason that movie shut off was because of the Kinect noticed that your sister was watching the movie and the DRM in your Xbox One decides to shut it down? What would you do? Why would that even happen? Here's why:

The patent, US20120278904, works as a surveillance mechanism, inbuilt within devices including television sets, computers, smartphones and tablets in order to enforce digital rights management (DRM). In other words, if you're streaming content without a license, it can be detected -- and your media stream cut off.

Given another possible scenario, let's say you're streaming a movie from your computer to your Xbox One. What if the Xbox One doesn't allow recognize the DRM tags in the movie? Guess what? You're movie will be shut off.

This is part of the reason why I am not very excited about the future of Microsoft; especially the Xbox One. Now remember, these are just two scenarios. There are tons more that can be and they're aren't limited to the Kinect or the Xbox One:

Although an infrared camera may not be the only method of detection, and technology including Microsoft's Kinect, controllers and "facial recognition techniques" could be used, the patent continues by stating that DRM can further be enforced by "determining at least a number of users within a display area of a display device for a duration of the presentation exceeding a threshold." In other words, if a license only covers one individual viewing and you're watching a film with friends or family, content simply won't play.

Normal cameras that can recognize faces and future remotes and game controllers may also detect these things. Scary stuff.

However, and let me point this out right now. Microsoft was just granted the patent. This doesn't mean Microsoft or the Xbox One will actually use these methods to control what you say or who's in the room with you. However, having Microsoft having these issues is scary enough.

Thabass is an aspiring community manager for online video game communities. He current serves as an IGN All-Star! Thabass is also well-versed in the video game business with over three years of being in and following the industry. He can be reached on Twitter @Thabass or can be followed on My IGN.

Have you been following the Diablo 3 debacle? I'm sure you have. It has been one of the most talked about things in the industry for quite a while now. The debate of online DRM has been around a long time and it seems like it will never end. My opinion on the matter has been shape shifting for a while. Games that require an online connect just to be played is terrible. It's onset is to make sure that people are connected to a server so that people are Authenticated in playing a legit copy of the game. Diablo 3 is one of these games that is making their users do this. It's been known for a while that they Diablo 3 will be using this type of security in order to play, but does it make it right?

Admittedly, I was under the impression that online connection was a good idea. This was back about year ago and I was a firmsupporter in using such a device. In the short term, it sounds like a good idea for the developer, but when you take in account that people can no longer play your game offline is, for the long term, a bad idea. You no longer have the internet to play your game if the ISP goes out. If the server is down, guess what, you cannot play your game anymore. What was so good about games in the past is that you didn't have to be online just to play a game. You had the choice play the game offline so that you could continue your adventure by yourself in peace and quiet. Developers nowadays, however, seem to have the believe that many people are pirates. Is that how they really feel or not? I don't know, I'm not going to accuse them of that, but to player, it would seem like they are and they are out to get the player.

What can developers do differently? Enable online activation only. What does that mean? Just make it required to activate the game on servers. Then the user can play offline. Do not enable the game until the user connects the server ONCE. There should be no penalty for the player to play offline. It's not fair to the player if the player doesn't have a good internet connection in their area, and yes, there are some areas where the internet is not as good as you would find in the city.

Of course, this is just one solution. The key code obviously didn't work and it will never seem to ever work will again. Consoles are finally implementing this system, but what if hackers found out a way to get around those issues. Those codes will maybe hackable and then spread around the internet so people can use them.

What do you think. Do you think game developers are in the right here?